


After the War

by astridthemighty (jk_rockin)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Cigarettes, F/F, Poetry, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-22
Updated: 2010-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:30:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jk_rockin/pseuds/astridthemighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>London's burning. Hermione and Millicent sit on the steps and smoke and talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the War

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very old fic, first posted to my LiveJournal in October 2004. It was so tempting to try to rewrite it, but in the interests of historical accuracy I have left it untouched. Written between Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince.

It's a dark afternoon on a dark day of a dark time. Appropriately, the figure on the steps is dressed in black and swathed in shadow. It's a girl, bigger than most, and she stares out at the sky like she's blind.

Another girl, smaller, comes around the corner at a hunted pace.

"Hermione!"

The first jumps off the steps and grabs Hermione around the waist.

"Millicent, thank god," says Hermione. "You're okay?"

"A few bruises. I'm fine, worrywart." Millicent smiles teasingly, running a hand through Hermione's hair. "What's happening out there?"

"Too much."

Millicent nods. They sit on the steps of the old building, silent for a while. Eventually Millicent's questing fingers find a grubby pack of cigarettes in her coat pocket. She passes one to Hermione, puts on between her own lips, and slips the pack into the inner pocket. She draws her wand.

"Incendio," Millicent mutters, and the ends of the cigarettes glow. Both women- seventeen but oh so grown up now- take a deep and grateful drag.

"We really should quit, you know," says Hermione, grimacing at the stale tobacco.

"I know," says Millicent.

"We'll quit after. You know, after the war."

"Yeah," says Millicent. "After the war."

They smoke silently.

It's a hopeless war and they both know it. It had been fine, it had been manageable, until the Muggles had been drawn into it. Now it was wizard against Muggle against Muggle against wizard, and even if they beat the Death Eaters, the world, as they had known it, was over.

"We could go to France," says Hermione suddenly.

"You like France," conceeds Millicent.

"Yes... we could go to the south. Very sunny, this time of year." Hermione blinks thoughtfully, blowing smoke.

"A bit of warmth would be nice," says Millicent.

"After the war, of course."

"Of course."

It's autumn, and only two in the afternoon, but it's freezing cold. Millicent, raised in a big stone manor, notices it less, but Hermione, clad as she is in boots, gloves and coat, is shivering. Millicent scoots closer. It's only as she moves that Millicent recognises the steps they're on- the blackened shell behind them used to be St. Pauls.

Hermione wriggles under Millicent's coat, shivering. Their breath condenses in the air, swirling with smoke, glittering against the darkness. They sit for a while, smoking, trying not to listen to the explosions and screams in the distance.

"And thou art dead, as young and fair as aught of mortal birth; and form so soft, and charms so rare, too soon return'd to Earth," Millicent mumbles into Hermione's hair.

"Hmm?"

"It's Byron," she says softly. "_'And Thou Art Dead, As Young And Fair'_. One of his better works, I think."

"Since when do you read classical Muggle poetry?" Hermione asks.

"Since before the war," says Millicent, and it makes sense; they can no longer imagine a time when there was not the war.

"Do you know much poetry?" mumbles Hermione, wearily. They cannot sleep, she knows, there is not time for that, but there is time to sit and doze, here on the blackened, lonely steps of the ruined cathedral.

"Plenty," says Millicent.

"Recite me some?"

"Of course."

So they sit, smoking endless cigarettes, huddling together, and Millicent recites everything she knows- Byron, Milton, Shelley. Eventually they share cigarettes, and then Millicent runs out of poetry, and it's nearly too late.

Millicent leans over and kisses Hermione, slowly, gently, and it tastes of cigarettes and hope and pain and glory and death. Hermione kisses back, because what else is there to do?

In the distance there are cries, people yelling, but from here they cannot tell what. Perhaps they are yelling that the Death Eaters have won, perhaps Voldemort is dead, perhaps the war is over. Here, in the crumbling, burning remains of London, two women huddle under a under a soiled and crumbling greatcoat, and they kiss, and hope.

The war is not over. But it could be.


End file.
